'Pacific Rim' Wins War Against Summer Sequels, Prequels and Reboots

Two pilots control the massive "Jaeger" robots to fend off the "Kaiju" attacks in Pacific Rim.

In a summer where there's practically a sequel or prequel or reboot released weekly, it's a refreshing change of pace when an original high-concept film maneuvers into a pivotal position that challenges the landscape of a sea of summer blockbusters.

Pacific Rim is unquestionably that movie. Visionary Guillermo del Toro returns to the director's chair after a five-year hiatus since helming Hellboy II: The Golden Army back in 2008. Instead of demons and dark fairy tales, del Toro tackles a concept intended to appeal any inner child who was visually fed Transformers, Power Rangers and Godzilla. In that mindset, what can be more entertaining than robots and monsters duking it out for over two hours?

Within the first few minutes of Pacific Rim, audiences are thrown headfirst into an overload of exposition that sets the stage as to why gargantuan "Kaiju" creatures emerged out of the ocean only to target and lay waste to major cities on a global scale. Little time's wasted to push the plot along to the giant robots codenamed "Jaegers," physically and mentally controlled by a pair of pilots, built to combat the creatures.

Pacific Rim is simply the visual spectacle of the summer, stuffed from start to finish with gargantuan robots clanking metal with monsters on any and all sort of stylized playing fields. The grander the scale of  the battle between "Jaeger" and "Kaiju" gets as the film progresses, naturally the following confrontation demands to be visually and creatively superior to the last. Del Toro exceeds the hype by pushing the visual limits to new and seamless levels of technical evolution.  By the time the climax rolls around after nearly two speedy hours of nonstop battles, the end result is nothing short sheer brilliance straight from the picturesque imagination of Guillermo del Toro.

The only glaring flaw in Pacific Rim is the lack of character development from its two main leads, Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) and Rinko Kikuchi (Babel). Hunnam and Kikuchi pair up to pilot the "Gipsy Danger" robot, but they're as vanilla as it comes. There's still a satisfactory amount of back story to understand where both characters are coming from before the events of Pacific Rim, but not quite enough actually become invested in any complex arcs.

Rather the minor characters are the ones that surprisingly stand out, particularly Idris Elba (Thor), who heads the resistance against the "Kaiju" creatures and a brief appearance from Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman portraying a black market dealer specializing in valuable "Kaiju" remains. Charlie Day's not too bad either as a scientist who mentally melds with part of a "Kaiju" brain, offering some wacky comedic humor to remind audiences that Pacific Rim doesn't pretend to be more than an entertaining summer thrill ride.

Riddled in jaw-dropping art direction, cinematography and a powerhouse score by Ramin Djawadi, Pacific Rim already has the makings of becoming a cult classic for all the right reasons. Del Toro does indeed borrow from various established source materials in Pacific Rim, but he dabs in the best of both worlds to punch the film to a level that's not going to forgotten about in a few days, weeks or perhaps even months down the road.

While many films have been produced by Guillermo del Toro in the past few years, having del Toro's signature style flowing through the veins of Pacific Rim is confirmation that when he's in the director's chair, the right ingredients are present at the right time.

At the end of the day, there's nothing more visually appetizing for a summer afternoon than watching a big screen mash-up of an episode of Power Rangers and a random Godzilla movie. On paper, it's as if no one over the age of seven would even consider watching Pacific Rim, but the beauty of it is who wouldn't want to drift back to that tender young age for two heavily entertaining hours of pure fun?

GRADE: A- (9/10)